McCann Worldgroup Shines at 2023 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity

McCann Worldgroup, part of the Interpublic Group of Companies, was a top performer at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, earning 55 total Lions across 18 competitive categories for 20 clients, including a coveted Titanium Lion and three Grand Prix in Design, Creative Business Transformation and Sustainable Development Goals. The network ranked in the top five networks and earned top honours for global brands including Mastercard and Microsoft.

The network won a total of 55 Cannes Lions – one Dan Wieden Titanium Lion, three Grand Prix and 51 Gold, Silver and Bronze. The winning work spanned a broad range of markets, agencies, and clients, illustrating the collective impact of the network’s talents and capabilities. 

Top awarded work included Mastercard’s 'Where to Settle' project from McCann Poland and McCann New York, awarded a coveted Dan Wieden Titanium Lion, a Grand Prix and two Golds, among other honours. Following the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, almost 10 million refugees found shelter in major Polish cities that were already overcrowded, causing rental hikes and increased competition for jobs - all amidst an unprecedented rise in inflation. Knowing that smaller towns afford more opportunities, Mastercard introduced the 'Where to Settle' digital platform, a comprehensive digital tool that aggregates job and real estate data, anonymous and aggregated Mastercard spending insights, as well as data from the Polish Central Statistical Office. 20% of the 1.5 million refugees who have settled in Poland thus far have used the platform to find Polish cities outside of the major metropolitan areas to make a fresh start. 

Cannes also recognised McCann Poland as the Agency of the Year in the 'Good' category, the coveted top prize handed out in each of the Festival’s nine comprehensive competitive categories.

ADLaM, from McCann New York and Microsoft, won two Grand Prix, one in Design and one in Creative Business Transformation. ADLaM is the written form of Pulaar, a West African language spoken by over 60 million people but with no written alphabet until brothers Ibrahima and Abdoulaye Barry, determined to preserve their language and the beautiful culture of the Fulani people who speak it, created one. McCann Worldgroup and Microsoft worked together to create a digitised font of ADLaM that is now available throughout the Microsoft 365 suite, desktop, and mobile platforms, allowing the Fulani people to communicate globally through texts, emails and websites and empowering them to conduct business, connect through social media and find information in their own language.

Network highlights include:

• McCann Worldgroup’s top performing agencies were McCann New York, McCann Poland, FP7 McCann Dubai and McCann Tel Aviv.
• McCann Worldgroup UK and Europe won a Grand Prix for the 6th consecutive year. Each year the Grand Prix has come from a different UK/Europe market, demonstrating the strength and creative range of the region.
• McCann New York earned the position as the top performing New York agency in Cannes - and the only New York agency to win Grand Prix.
• Craft, the network’s global creative production agency, turned in its best performance at Cannes ever and collaborated on work that won 23 Cannes Lions, including Microsoft’s ADLaM.
• Weber Shandwick, MRM and Performance Art also contributed to the network’s performance, with MRM Santiago winning its first Gold Lion for NotCo’s ingenious 'We Didn’t Write This Campaign.'
• Vector B/McCann Mexico and Performance Art contributed to the Grupo Bimbo 'The Greatest Guide,' which helped more than 8,400 Mexican small business entrepreneurs stand out against the sea of fast-food giants through mapping tech and a first-of-its-kind suite of AI-driven branding tool and earned a Silver Lion.

Daryl Lee, global CEO, McCann Worldgroup, said, “The collective impact our teams have generated in partnership with our clients and the accolades they’ve garnered at this year’s festival embody creative collaboration. We are enormously proud of the incredible creative range and the meaningful work we have created for some of the world’s most significant brands. Congratulations to all of our teams around the world who contributed to this impressive body of work. We are very proud of what we’ve accomplished and energised to see what our teams come up with next.”

McCann Worldgroup’s two most-recognised campaigns:

Mastercard’s 'Where to Settle,' from McCann Poland and McCann New York, won a total of nine Lions: one Titanium, one Grand Prix in Sustainable Development Goals, one Gold, one Silver and one Bronze in Direct, one Gold and one Bronze in PR, one Silver in Brand Experience Activation and one Bronze in Creative Data.

Microsoft’s ADLaM, from McCann New York and Craft New York, won a total of seven Cannes Lions: one Grand Prix in Design, one Grand Prix and one Bronze in Creative Business Transformation, one Gold in Industry Craft, one Gold and one Bronze in Brand Experience and one Silver in Sustainable Development Goals.